


Of Painters and Dreams

by AerisaHale (KarasuKyra)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/F, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 16:22:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3453893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarasuKyra/pseuds/AerisaHale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Office of Reincarnation sends you a letter at the end of your life, telling you what the next life will be like for you. Allison isn't sure she's going to get a letter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Painters and Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Written for femtropebingo's Bingo Card. The space was Reincarnation.

Her cane clicks as she hobbles across the kitchen. She sees Lydia's long, braided gray hair and moves over to where her wife is sitting at the table and strokes a hand down her hair. The old woman turns and smiles, her green eyes warm. She's holding a letter and there are tears in her eyes.

'What is it?' Allison wants to ask, but she doesn't. She just waits patiently for Lydia to be ready to tell her.

The letter crumples in Lydia's wrinkled hands and she turns, slowly because her back bothers her, and grabs the hand that Allison isn't using to support herself. “I got my reincarnation letter.”

“You know who you're going to be in the next life?”

“I'm going to be a painter. A painter! This mind is going to be wasted on art?” Lydia scoffs and then coughs.

Allison smiles and sets herself carefully in the chair adjacent to her wife. “Your art will be beautiful. Do you—Do you know who you'll end up with?”

It's the question that's been in the back of Lydia's mind since the government discovered reincarnation and the pattern to figuring out who you're going to be—and who you're going to be with. The government has started sending out letters toward the end of your life, telling you what to expect in the next life. You wouldn't remember who you were, but it was a comfort going into the next.

“It—It doesn't say,” Lydia's voice breaks. “Maybe yours will say. You know we're soulmates.”

–

A few more months go by and Allison continues with her daily life. She waits patiently for her letter to come and gets more and more nervous as the days pass. She calls the Office of Reincarnation and asks about it and they tell her it will be there.

Lydia has started reading books on art history. She talks for hours about Renoir, Monet, and Degas. Allison listens intently, wanting to learn her lover's future passion. Maybe she'll take remnants of it into the next life, because surely she'll be with Lydia.

Allison wakes up one morning and turns to wake up Lydia and she isn't moving. Tears flood her eyes and she reaches for her cellphone on the nightstand to call Paramedics. She cries out. “But I don't know if I'll find you in the next life. You can't leave me yet!”

She's numb for a long time. For hours at a time, she sits and stares out the window. The house is quiet. Lydia isn't there making idle comments about math and art. She misses listening to the turn of a page and debating local policy with Lydia. She listens to the tick of the clock and waits for her letter.

She doesn't have the strength to get out of bed that day. The lock to her front door clicks and her door opens. Footfalls cross the kitchen and there's a light knock on her bedroom door before it cracks open. Her daughter pokes her head in.

“Hey, mom. How are you doing?”

Allison and Lydia had adopted the girl when she was fifteen. Now, she was in her late forties and had a family of her own. Allison was fiercely proud, but she didn't get to see her daughter that often.

The dark-haired woman sits up in her bed, grunting with effort. “Madeleine, how's Cody?”

“He's good, he's starting his residency at Kelley Brooks Hospital in Denver.”

“Good.” She smiles and finds comfort in the legacy she and Lydia have left.

“Your reincarnation letter came. I thought you might want to open it.”

This makes Allison pull her old body out of the bed and she hobbles over to her daughter and grabs the letter. They both move out and sit at the dining room table, where Allison's arthritic fingers work to open the letter.

Her eyes scan the contents as tears start to roll down her wrinkled cheeks.

Dear Mrs. Argent,

We at the Office of Reincarnation are pleased to help you make the transition into the next life. We hope you will find comfort in the information contained in this letter. If you have any questions we can be contacted at 555-7853.

We have discovered that your name will be Natalia Smirnova. You will be of Russian descent and you will be a doctor. Medical school will come easy to you, and you'll live a happy life in the suburbs. You'll live your life with the woman you knew as Lydia Argent. That was all the information we were able to discover. We sincerely hope this makes your transition easier.

Office of Reincarnation

 

Matthew Collins

Allison's body slumps in relief. She'll see her beloved again. She'll be a doctor! Lydia will be an artist. They'll even live in the suburbs!

She realizes she's talking out loud when she sees her daughters bright smile. “We, too, will see each other again, Momma. I know it.”

Allison Argent goes to bed that night, knowing whether she wakes up or not, she'll inevitably see her wife again. A soft smile curves her lips as she closes her eyes. Her next life chases her into her dreams, the sounds of children playing and a redhead by her side in her mind's eye.


End file.
